Guidelines By Which Law Firms Interview at Law Schools

Many students are curious about why certain firms recruit from certain law schools and not others. It may be the case that you go to A+ Law School, a top-twenty law school in the country.

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You want to work at Law Firm. Through research, you find out that Law Firm does not interview at A+ Law School. Even more vexing is that while Law Firm does not interview at A+ Law School at all, Law Firm interviews at D+ Law School, which is ranked in the bottom third of law schools.
 

Unfair? No. The firm can interview wherever it wants. However, if you are a student at A+ law school and you really want to work at Law Firm, you still stand a chance even if they do not interview on campus at your school. Follow instructions for an unsolicited mailing and use it in cases like this, when the firm in which you are interested does not interview at your law school.

Contingency: In addition to the ranking and reputation of a school, there is an issue of contingency. People like to recruit students from their alma mater. For example, if the makeup of a firm's partnership has presence from a particular school, chances are that the firm will make an extra effort there, whatever its reputation.

Proximity also comes into play with regard to contingency. For example, students from Columbia will turn up at New York firms, and students from Suffolk will turn up at Boston firms. In many cases, firms will value school loyalty over prestige.

For those of you who are concerned about the reputation of your school, here is an indisputable fact: there is plenty of room at top law firms for students who do not attend top law schools. If you are at a school in a lower tier, look for firms with alumni from your school. Write each and every one of these attorneys to tell them you want a job. Your chances are better at these firms because of the sense of loyalty people from your alma mater will have.

How Many Students Firms Look For: Firms decide on the number of students they want to hire very early on in the calendar year. This number depends on the firm's needs, which are determined by many factors.

The success of the firm: If the firm has had a successful year, it expects a continued flow of work from its clients and will maintain or expand the size of its junior classes. If a firm is looking for a class of the same or larger size as the previous summer, this is a sign that the firm is thriving. If the firm volunteers that it is looking to reduce drastically the size of its incoming and summer classes, do not be afraid to ask why. The firm's business may be slowing down, and this is information you need before you consider an offer, During your interview, it is fair and expected of you to ask how many associates or summer associates the firm is looking to hire (see the "Interview Questions" in Chapter Four).

See Also: How to Answer the “Tell Me about Yourself” Interview Question

Attrition: The year's attrition rate will affect the number of students and lateral associates a firm wants to hire. This is pretty simple and there is not much else to say except that if a lot of associates leave the firm, they need to be replaced.

Recruiting Statistics: Firms use statistics to aid in the recruitment of new associates. In hiring meetings, the hiring partners or committee have recruiting statistics dating back a few years. These show how many offers were given at each school, the yield, the amount of declines, even the number of people who canceled interviews after making their appointments. Percentages are derived from these, and from the percentages firms decide how many offers to give at each school. There is always some flexibility with these statistics, but a firm will try its best to stick to these guidelines.

Offers: When a firm comes to its decision on a candidate, offers tend to be given out more quickly than rejections. For example, if a firm wants you, you may be offered a job at the end of your interviews or someone from the firm will call you that very night. The firm is eager and excited to have you work here, which is why you hear about offers sooner rather than later.

Firms will usually make offers of employment with a phone call and follow up with an official letter.

Steps You Can Take to Help Make Your Decision: After you have secured a few offers, it's time to start the decision-making process, which can be very tough. If you are having trouble, following are a few steps you can take to help with this major decision.

Second visits: You can always visit a firm for a second time to meet more associates. The idea of returning to a firm voluntarily may sound like an annoying chore to some of you – particularly after having gone through the chaos of the recruiting season --but I recommend it in any case. Even if you are 100 percent set on a firm after your callback, visit a second time — talking to more people will either reinforce your decision or make you reconsider. For example, I saw students accept their offers at the end of a second visit many times during each of my years as a recruiter; it was clear that these second visits reinforced their decisions.

Second visits are particularly helpful if you are having trouble deciding among a few places; they can make or break your decision. Remember: the more people you meet, the more information you have about the firm. If you are not invited but would like to make a second visit, call the firm's recruiting department — the firm will be happy to accommodate your request.

An advantage to second visits is that you already have an offer, which puts you in a position of power. The firm wants you, and because of this, you will feel more confident. During your second visit you will most likely meet with a new crop of attorneys you did not meet in your previous interview. This means you can ask the same questions you did before, which makes things a little easier. However comfortable you may feel, do not behave in too familiar a way on your second visit. This is still a formal meeting with a prospective employer.

Receptions: Attend receptions held by firms where you may want to work. Here you can talk to as many or as few lawyers as you want; this is a great way to get a feel for a place. Even though a reception seems like a casual environment, your behavior here will be seen as a direct reflection of your ability to perform well in the workplace. You should enjoy yourself at these functions, but never forget that while the reception or party may have a laid-back veneer, you are in a very uncasual atmosphere.

Learn the 10 Factors That Matter to Big Firms More Than Where You Went to Law School

Watch what you say. Many students bring up inappropriate topics at receptions. On this subject, one attorney says, "Remember that you are surrounded by the people who might be evaluating your professional performance one day. This means that your appearance should be neat and clean, you should not drink too much and do not say anything inappropriate. My own test for whether something I am about to say is inappropriate in the workplace is to imagine what I am about to say being broadcast over the firm intercom system, all at once, to all employees of the firm. I bite my tongue a lot more than I ever could have imagined."

Other follow-up: Rather than invite you for a second visit, some firms will invite you for additional dinners or out for a drink. If a firm is interested in you, its associates and partners will make an effort to "sell you" on the firm as you make your decision.

One firm I worked for was very committed to following up with students who had offers, and for this we had an extensive program. Associates and partners who had rapport with a recruit would call and ask him or her out for drinks or dinner to discuss the decision; they knew it was not easy for you guys.

Many firms do not think it necessary to wine and dine recruits in such a way; in these situations, associates and partners may simply call you to talk or drop you an email from time to time to see where you are in the decision-making process. When responding to partners and associates by email, remember that e-mail should be treated as seriously as a business letter. You should also check your email frequently and write back promptly.

Some firms will not f9llow up with you at all. You will be left to make a decision on your own.

Making your decision:

Deciding on a firm will not be easy for most of you. One of my responsibilities as a recruiter was to counsel students on their decisions. It is a good idea to wait to make a final decision until after you have gone on all of your callbacks. For example, you may be scheduled to meet with four firms but get an offer and feel absolutely sure about the second firm you meet. Consider going on the two remaining interviews just in case because you may end up preferring one of the other firms. The major issue with your final decision is that there are no guarantees; some of you will never be 100 percent sure that you made the right choice until you have begun work as a full-time associate. Many issues come into play when making your decision.

Following are some things to consider.

Firm prestige: This is pretty simple: firms, like law schools and colleges, have varying levels of prestige. The American Lawyer magazine publishes a ranking of law firms annually; you can consult this to see where the firms you are considering measure up. As with colleges and law schools, there are advantages for working for a prestigious firm. The firm has its reputation for good reason, and having its name on your resume will echo throughout your career. If you choose a prestigious firm and end up hating your job, you can always trade down; the reverse, starting out at a less-reputable firm and trading up for a more reputable one, is not as likely.

Firm history: If a firm has been around for a while, this is a good sign. No matter the firm's size, if it has a good history -- meaning it has survived the ups and downs of the market -- it will endure. You can be confident that the firm is not going anywhere.

Firm culture: A firm's culture is made up of the "intangibles " of daily life at the firm. Much of a firm's culture has to do with the personalities and attitudes of its employees. You may reflect on an interview and see that you were left with a pleasant feeling from all the people you met; in a case like this, the firm's culture will be positive for you. Choose a firm where you will feel comfortable and where you liked the majority of the people you met.

Some firms go to extremes with regard to their culture; they will hold all kinds of retreats and get-togethers. At these firms, the associates and partners did not mind taking a weekend out of their lives to spend time with their coworkers while other firms do not do this at all. Obviously, firm culture is a personal choice; you have to decide if sing-alongs are right for you.

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Accepting Your Offer

While this seems like an easy part of the process, something that surprised me each recruiting season was the clumsiness with which students accepted their offers, and this is pretty easy to avoid. When calling to accept, do the following:
 

• Call the hiring partner or a partner with whom you have become most friendly.
• When you get him or her on the phone, say, "l am Calling to accept your offer."
• If he or she is out of the office, do not accept by leaving a voicemail or message. Instead, leave a voice mail or message asking him or her to call you back.
• Accept when you have the person live on the phone.
• Follow up with an official letter of acceptance.
• If you never get in touch with this person, call the recruiter and he or she will direct you.

When to Accept

Even if you have made your decision, you do not need to accept your offer right away. This is a personal choice and you should do whatever makes you most comfortable. I saw acceptances come in throughout the recruiting season. Aside from the guidelines set by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), you should not feel pressure to accept at any time, no matter how aggressively you are being courted. This is a major decision and you should be very deliberate in your approach. Accepting early makes you look enthusiastic. It is a nice way to show your excitement about coming to work and will highlight your strong resolve. There is no disadvantage to accepting early.

There is no disadvantage to accepting later, either. Some students prefer to wait, due to indecisiveness, while others play more of a hard-to-get type of game. Some were very candid with me about this; they explained that they had already decided to accept but were holding off on accepting officially in hopes of getting a few more dinners and drinks out of the firm. While this may sound like negative behavior, it is perfectly acceptable and firms expect to court you to some degree. By all means, go out and enjoy yourself, but be careful not to take advantage of the firm's generosity. A handful of students would bug us for drinks repeatedly and their behavior stood out in a most negative light.

National Association for Law Placement (NALP)

It is very important that you familiarize yourself with an organization called the National Association for Law Placement, or NALP (www.nalp.org). NALP is an association made up of ABA-accredited law schools and more than 1,000 of the nation's largest employers of attorneys. Almost all of the largest law firms (as well as governmental and corporate employers) are in their directory and are members of the association. Together, career services and recruitment professionals involved in NALP have developed a set of ethical guidelines regarding the timing of offers and acceptances to help promote fairness in the process.

In addition to the guidelines for timing of offers and acceptances, NALP is a terrific resource for you in terms of your job search; the information its website gives alone is truly extraordinary. A few of my favorite things on the website for law students are under a section entitled JD Job Seekers. Here you will find many articles and information about career planning and alternate career paths for attorneys. There is also NALP's annual "Associate Salary Survey/' with salary information for jobs at firms across the country.

NALP's Directory of Legal Employers lists information sheets about many different types of legal employers (members and non-members), which are filled out by the organizations themselves.

The Director of Legal Employers can be found on LexisNexis and as of April 1st, 2002, the 2002 -2003 edition is available online at www.nalpdirectory.com. Members of NALP will be able to go online to update their data whenever they want, so in many cases, this listing will have the most current information.

Following is an excerpt (Part V) from the National Association for Law Placement's Principles and Standards called Standards for the Timing of Offers and Decisions (reprinted with permission from NALP). Please be advised that while this section has been amended only four times since NALP's inception, it does change from time to time; for the most up-to-date information, consult NALP's website (www.nalp.org).

GENERAL STANDARDS FOR THE TIMING OF OFFERS AND DECISIONS

To promote fair and ethical practices for the interviewing and decision-making process, NALP offers the following standards for the timing of offers and decisions:

A. General Provisions
 

1. All offers to law students should remain open for at least two weeks after the date made unless the offers are made pursuant to Paragraphs B and C below, in which case the later response date should apply.
2. Law students should reaffirm offers governed by Paragraphs B and C below within thirty days from the date of the offer letter. Employers may retract any offer that Is not reaffirmed by the student.
3. Students are expected to accept or release offers or negotiate an extension of the response date by the applicable deadline.
4. After October 15, a student should not hold open more than four offers of employment simultaneously, and after November 1, a student should not hold open more than three offers simultaneously, including offers received as a result of previous summer employment. For each offer received that places a student over the offer limit, the student should, within one week of receipt of the excess offer, release an offer.
5. Second and third year students may, with the consent of the employer, extend one offer beyond December 1.
6. Employers should promptly report offers and decisions through NALP.
7. Employers having a total of 25 attorneys or fewer in all offices may be exempted from Paragraphs B and C below but should leave offers open for a minimum of two weeks.
8. Employers offering part-time or temporary positions for the school term may be exempted from the requirements of Paragraphs B and C below.
9. Violations of these guidelines should be reported to the student's career services office.

B. Full-Time Employment Provisions
 

1. Employers offering full-time positions following graduation to law students not previously employed by them should leave those offers open at least until December 1.
2. Employers making offers before September 15 of the student's third year for full-time positions following graduation to law students previously employed by them during any preceding summer should leave those offers open at least until November 1. Upon request by the student, an employer should extend this date until December 1 upon receipt of assurances from the student that he or she is holding and will hold no more than one other offer during the extension period.
3. Employers making offers on or after September 15 of the student's third year for full-time employment following graduation to law students previously employed by them during any preceding summer should leave those offers open at least until December 1.

C. Summer Employment Provisions for Second and Third Year Students
 

1. Employers offering summer positions in the fall to law students not previously employed by them should leave those offers open at least until December 1.
2. Employers making offers before September 15 for a second summer clerkship to law students previously employed by them during any preceding summer should leave those offers open at least until November 1. Upon request by the student, an employer should extend this date until December 1 upon receipt of assurances from the student that he or she is holding and will hold no more than one other offer during the extension period.
3. Employers making offers on or after September 15 for a second summer clerkship to law students previously employed by them during any preceding summer should leave those offers open at least until December 1.

D. Summer Employment Provisions for First Year Students
 

1. Law schools should not offer career services to first-semester first year law students prior to November 1 except in the case of part-time students who may be given assistance in seeking positions during the school term.
2. Prospective employers and first year law students should not initiate contact with one another and employers should not interview or make offers to first year students before December 1.
3. All offers to first year students for summer employment should remain open for at least two weeks after the date made.

Asking for an extension on any of these deadlines makes you look flaky, and few do this. If you have trouble making this decision, it will speak to your general decision-making ability; as an attorney, you will have to think on your feet often, so meet the deadline.

The NALP Directory of Legal Employers is where, among other things, you can find out whether or not a firm visits your school. As I explain earlier, firms have an idea of how many students they want from each school.

In addition to the other information on a firm's entry or page, you will find:
 

1. The proper name and address of the firm.
2. The name(s) of the hiring partner(s) and the name(s) Of the recruiter(s) .
3. Firm statistics, on everything from how many gay or Lesbian attorneys the firm has to how many partners the firm has made in recent years.
4. Firm policies, on everything from first-year hiring to benefits and salary.
5. At what schools the firm conducts its on-campus Interviews.
6. Salary information, for summer associates and full-time associates.
7. The location of a firm’s satellite offices.

Your school's career services office should have a copy of this book for your perusal.

While the information NALP provides on its members is terrific, obviously not every legal employer in the country is a member.

When and how to use an unsolicited mailings

Before using an unsolicited mailing, narrow the focus of your search. If you simply send a bunch of resumes out to firms willy-nilly, chances are that you will waste your time and money.

Unsolicited mailings are of particular help in the following circumstances:

CASE #1: You are interested in a firm that does not conduct on-campus interviews at your law school. For example, if you go to law school in Iowa and hope to work in Los Angeles, some firms in which you are interested will not come to your school. Send your cover letter and resume to these firms.

CASE #2: You missed on-campus interviews for a very good reason. It means you have to explain why you missed on-campus interviews in your cover letter. Since a significant number of students obtain their jobs at law firms through the on-campus interview process, you better have a very good reason for having missed them. Some "very good" reasons include students traveling -- usually the trip had some pedagogical or career value -- for example, one spent her summer in the West Bank doing social work and brushing up on her Arabic. Another was finishing up his internship with a judge across the country. A few students had serious illnesses or deaths in the family,

CASE #3: Third-year students who want to try a last-ditch effort at a few firms. If you met with a firm and you were rejected instantly but remain interested in working there, it will not hurt to write one of the people you met to see if there is any chance they might interview you in the future.

CASE #4: First-year students can do an unsolicited mailing to any firm that hires first-years. Make absolutely sure that the firm hires first-years or you will waste your time and money.

Instructions for an Unsolicited Mailing

Look on the firm website or in the NALP Director of Legal Employers for the correct address and spelling of the firm's name. If you use a mail merge, make absolutely sure that you set it up correctly. Mistakes like this look very bad and take just a few minutes of careful proofreading to avoid.

Write a very basic cover letter like; address the letter to any or all hiring partners and to the firm's recruiting coordinator. In an unsolicited mailing, you need to explain why you are writing; if a letter is unsolicited, no one is expecting it.

If you do not have a copy of your transcript, you may type one up by hand. Send this with your resume and cover letter. Some firms do not consider applicants without them, so include it. Keep records of the firms you approach through unsolicited mailings because you must follow up on your mailing with phone calls to the firm. Call everyone you sent a letter to until you get an answer, even if it is a rejection. When you call, if your name does not ring a bell with the recruiter or hiring partner, offer to send your resume immediately by email.

Be aggressive. On this topic, one attorney says, "I didn't push hard enough for the job I wanted when I was in law school. I was concerned about looking too pushy or unprofessional. What I didn't understand then is that there is nothing more professional than looking eager for a job. I didn't understand the function of a recruiting department, either. Here was a whole department structured around being hounded by law students. If I had known then what I do now, I would have been much more aggressive."

First-Year (1L) Hiring

First-year (1L) recruiting takes place during the spring. According to NALP guidelines, 1Ls have to respond by December 1 of their recruiting season; by the time 1L recruiting begins, the size of the incoming summer class will already have been determined. If at the end of the recruiting season a firm feels its incoming summer class is too small, it may go on campus and recruit 1Ls to fill in these gaps. Many firms make exceptions for exceptional 1Ls. If a firm gets a resume from an outstanding 1L and has no strict policy against 1L hiring, the candidate will get an offer. Do not be offended if a firm does not want to hire you for the summer after your first year. The cost-benefit analysis of a firm having 1Ls in its summer program comes out badly for the firm.

It is expensive for a firm to hire a 1L into a summer program. He or she will be paid and taken out and trained in the same way a 2L would. This is not usually to the firm's advantage because students rarely return to the firm where they spent the summer after their first year. The reason is this: a 1L with a summer job at a firm has the advantage of being able to put the firm on his or her resume before early interview week for the recruiting season of the second year.

Most likely, the student will use this credential to "trade up," or continue on to a firm of better reputation, for the next summer. So most of the time, it is not financially sound for a firm to hire a 1L for the summer.

If you want to work at a firm after your first year of law school, get the best grades that you can. You need to stick out like a sore thumb. This may sound obvious, but your glowing transcript is the only guarantee for consideration from firms.

The students with summer jobs after their first year were usually of exceptional academic standing. Second, go to your career services office and find out which firms hire first-years. The NALP Directory of Legal Employers lists this information. You do not want to waste any time or money applying to a firm that has a policy against hiring first-years. While people slip through cracks under some circumstances, this is not one of them. Firms that do not hire 1Ls will not even consider your application.

Wrap-Up

With regard to candidates not getting offers, it is often heard, "This person is not a good fit.'" This may sound like a nice way of saying, "you stink and we don't want you," but it learned that there actually is such a thing as a bad "fit." You may not get an offer because you are better suited to work somewhere else. As with anything, some people will take an immediate liking to you and others will take longer to warm up.

Unfortunately, the law firm interviewing process does not allow for this "warming up" period. So, take rejection in stride.
Keep plugging away. You will end at the right place.

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